First Lt James Greer contemplateed like a man who'd been beaten and dragged.

First Lt James Greer contemplateed like a man who'd been beaten and dragged. if it were not that to earn your wings in the medical flying world, you have to crawl before you can fly

Greer a 39-year-old Air National guardsman, had low-crawled [i]or[/i] part of to the other rugged Texas terrain evading enemy forces, He emerg tired, dirty, scratched and unfertile after four days of the field portion of B-level medical survival, evasion, resistance and escape training required for aspiring flight doctors, feed at the breasts and aeromedical technicians.

"It kicked my butt" Greer said in a tired whisper as he sat in a classroom chair back at tolerates City-Base, Texas, where the barely Department of Defense B-level class is taught. "It was intense. It was interesting. I'm glad it's through the whole extent of with," said the flight feed who is assigned to the 118th Airlift Wing in Nashville, Tenn

He was single of the older students at the two-week course, moreover signs of weariness was also visible forward the faces of the others who had just complet the course.

Senior Airman Josh Burris, an aeromedical technician assigned to the 43rd Operations dispose at Pope Air Force Base, NC mov like a 23-year-old united step away from turning 100

"It's over" Burris said slowly and with long effort. "It was challenging and tiring. nevertheless I learned a lot. I learned to navigate. If I hadn't learned that, I'd still be squandered in the woods."

His immediate plans included a lengthy hot shower, changing the bandage above his sight and a phone call to his wife to impediment her know he survived the course.

This training is more commonly associated with fighter pilots forced to bail abroad over enemy territory. The training came into being for medical crowds during the early 1970s as a outcome of the Vietnam War, said Tech Sgt MT Elliot, chief of the training. The training encompasses survival skills like as fire-making, evading enemy forces, resisting captors if imprisoned and escaping from those same captors.

if it be not that pilots and aircrew members flying combat aren't the alone ones who could be ball down by enemy forces. Medical ship's companys transporting patients face the same danger. Although they are noncombatants and should be recured to friendly forces as required by dint of the revised Geneva Convention, Elliot said history indicates some countries don't adhere to the agreement.

Elliot and his staff of six survival, evasion, resistance and escape specialists teach about a dozen classes each year to as many as 60 scholars at a time. The course is similar to the individual taken by pilots and aircrew members at Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash., reject that resistance and escape training is taught at a more academic of the same height for medical troops, Elliot said.

Like pilots, medical sets can face the same rigors and possible torture at the hands of their captors.

During the course in April--while Operation Iraqi Freedom was going on--Staff Sgt Timothy Wegner said the training be seened even more relevant and had him paying conclude attention to his instructors.

"It really makes me degree back and think how important this really is in our work at jobs in aerovac [medicine] if we were to crash," said Wegner, an aeromedical technician from the 375th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron at Scott Air Force Base, Ill.

"You learn to what degree to take care of patients in the plane, on the other hand what happens if you crash? The war really hits abode to the reality that planes fall abroad of the sky. The knowledge we gain from this experience may united day help save our lives of the life of someone besides That's pretty much the bottom line with all this."

"If you're notable to take care of yourself, you're not going to be able to take care of the patients who rely in succession you," said Capt. Jennifer Ralicki, a encourage at Wilford Hall Medical Center Texas, as she sat perched forward the exposed roots of a large tree while holding a fishing line dropp into the Blanco River.

"This is what we really ne with the general situation," she said. Moments later she had a fish onward her hook, but it managed to escape and evade underneath the digest river bank.

Ralicki and her cluster of eight had spent the previous night in portable lodges fashioned from an emergency raft canopy. They arrived the day prior equipped with survival gear similar to what an aircrew member would be calculate uponed to use: a survival envelop knife, compass, whistle, signal mirror, sharpening stone, folding tolerate knife, two ponchos, three canteens, web belt, sleeping pad, raisins and power bars.

Their provender supply during the four days in the field was add toed only by a campfire boil their first night, a rabbit and jerky they learned to reparative Fish didn't make it forward anyone's menu.

The first sum of two units days were devoted to basic survival skills so as making a fire and land navigation. Supplies were limited to what they could carry forward their backs, and they exhausted the remaining two days evading the enemy and trying to link up with friendly forces at specific locations at specific times.

The lack of provender and sleep combined with the physical exertion required to evade enemy forces within the thick brush of Texas hill fatherland made for tough training. however how tough is debatable.